The Ultimate Vegan Meal: All the Nutrition and Zero Deficiencies

There’s little arguing the ethical and environmental benefits of a vegan diet, and many people choose to live this way for exactly those reasons. However, a lot of people also come into problems with the lifestyle because they don’t fully understand how to cook nutritious, wholesome meals that make up for the deficiencies in the diet. Luckily this article is going to give you what might just be the ultimate vegan meal.

But first things first …

What is it that vegan meals often lack?

Protein – Probably the most obvious, but also one of the most important deficiencies in many vegan diets is an adequate amount of protein. This mainly occurs because people take the meat or fish out of a meal without replacing it with an equally valid source of protein.

Vitamin B12 – This is found naturally only in animal products. A lack of vitamin B12 can lead to blindness and anaemia. Deficiency can also cause weakness, tingling, and numbness in your muscles.

Calcium – Most easily found in milk, absorbable calcium is crucial to protect against osteoporosis (aka thinning bones.)

Iron – Red meat and eggs are both rich in this, and it is crucial for the prevention of iron-deficiency anaemia.

Zinc – Red meat and Poultry are sources of zinc, which is necessary for your skin health, digestion and central nervous system. It is also needed for your and skeletal, reproductive and immune systems.

Riboflavin – Riboflavin or Vitamin B2 is important in energy metabolism. It assists your body in utilising the other B-vitamins that help your body get energy from food. Some studies show it may also protect cells from oxidative damage.

Omega 3 Fatty Acids – There are 3 types of these, ALA, EPE and DHA. Since these are often obtained through oily fish, vegetarians and vegans tend to obtain less omega-3s than meat eaters.

So, how do we get these things?

Protein: Options like tofu or Quorn are great meat substitutes. Then there’s beans, legumes and nuts. It can also help to use higher protein and carbohydrate sources like quinoa and amaranth.

Calcium: You can get this in tofu, edamame (boiled green soybeans), almonds, calcium-fortified orange juice, calcium-fortified soy or almond milk plus those good old dark green leafy vegetables like kale, spinach and bok choy.

Zinc: This is often found is vegan meat substitutes as well as in soybeans, soy milk, vegan eggs (yep they exist – how cool is that) fortified breakfast cereals, various seeds and nuts plus mushrooms, lentils, black-eyed peas and split peas.

Vitamin B12: Since this is only naturally found in meat products you’ll have to buy fortified products such as vegan meat substitutes as well as fortified soy drinks and cereals.

Step 5: (Optional) add any source you wish for flavourStep 6: Drain and serve up the amaranth then pour the contents of your frying pan over the top.

Step 6: Drain and serve up the amaranth then pour the contents of your frying pan over the top.

Step 7: Sprinkle your chopped walnuts and pumpkin seeds over the top.

Step 8: Enjoy!

There you have it, the ultimate vegan meal – super rich in nutrition and fulfilling the dietary needs of both vegans and vegetarians. With meals like this, there’s absolutely no need to sacrifice your health, fitness or wellbeing in order to pursue ethical and environmental goals. Now you can have both; eat well and do your part to change the world. I hope this meal gives you a great starting point for a healthy vegetarian diet. Much more, though, I hope this article helps you to understand how to overcome the deficiencies of the vegan diet and gives you a sort of process or checklist that you can follow when putting together your own recipes and meals.

Amaranth is such an awesome grain that I feel like is underutilized (at least in my neck of the woods, it’s really hard to find). I love it! I’m not vegan so I do a honey balsamic chicken and kale with amaranth that is super tasty.

This is really good, important information – I think these nutrients are the ones that a lot of people struggle with when they consider a vegan diet, and I know at least one person who had to come off a vegan diet because they weren’t getting the nutrition they needed. But it is possible – as you demonstrated! So well done 🙂

love that there’s so much protein in this dish; that’s usually my biggest concern, since i get hungry pretty fast without a solid amount and i veer towards vegetarian anyways. plus, the crunch of the nuts with the soft/tender tofu and beans and crisp-tender veggies sounds so good!

I love this article! We try to eat vegetarian or vegan once a week and it’s nice to see the nutritional value of some of the foods we eat here. I made simple fried Chinese-style tofu the 2 nights ago and ate the leftovers today for lunch with kimchi and rice. I love lunches like that 🙂

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Hi, I’m Agness, and as you might have guessed, I love to run! Being born in Poland, and traveling to various destinations around the world, I’ve always been attracted to the freedom that running offers, not to mention that it’s a great way to keep fit, stay in shape and live an awesome healthy lifestyle.